Abstract：The article starts with a brief explanation of the notions of linguistic competence, communicative competence and foreign language proficiency. Then it goes on to clarify some misconceptions about our foreign language education. And finally it proposes that we should pay attention to the development of linguistic competence, organize our teaching according to learners' needs, emphasize the learning of communication through communicative interactions, lay stress on the understanding and expression of cultures and cultivate learners' independent learning capacity if we want to develop our learners' foreign language proficiency.
